A bully Supreme Court

On Target
By Ramon Tulfo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MORE citizens and groups are standing up to the Supreme Court on the charge of plagiarism against one of its members.

The latest groups to pick a fight with the high tribunal over its defense of an alleged plagiarist, Justice Mariano del Castillo, are the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) and Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (Cocopea).

The CEAP counts on 1,290 Catholic schools, colleges and universities as members throughout the country, comprising millions of students.

The Cocopea, on the other hand, has more students in its fold than CEAP since the latter is just one of its members.

The sheer number of people under them makes CEAP and Cocopea the largest and most powerful groups to take on the Supreme Court.

In a half-page advertisement (the other half was occupied by Cocopea) in the Inquirer Tuesday, CEAP said the Supreme Court condoned plagiarism when it cleared Del Castillo of the charge that he copied the words of foreign legal minds without attribution.

“The highest tribunal has set a higher threshold for plagiarism to be punishable, and so may in fact abet plagiarism,” the CEAP said.

On the other hand, the Cocopea took issue with the high court’s claim that Del Castillo did not commit plagiarism since he didn’t do it with “malicious intent.”

The Cocopea went on: “How can we now discipline our students who copy the works and writings
of other authors without attribution when they can simply take refuge behind the Supreme Court ruling?”

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Fr. Gregorio Banaga, CEAP president and Cocopea officer representing Adamson University, said it took them a long time to decide to come out against the high court’s “no malicious intent” ruling.

“We had to come out because it involves a moral issue,” Banaga said in my interview with him on my TNT program on dzIQ-Radyo Inquirer (990 AM).

“Plagiarism is not only a legal issue, but a moral one. We teach our students morality,” the academician-priest said.

* * *

The CEAP, in a half-page ad it titled “In Defense of Honesty and Integrity,” called on the high tribunal to withdraw its threat of sanction against 37 professors of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law.
The Supreme Court has ordered the professors to explain why they should not be punished for questioning its decision absolving Justice Del Castillo of plagiarism.

Del Castillo’s defense was that his researcher forgot to acknowledge the authors of passages used by the justice in a decision.

The threat of sanction against the UP professors for questioning the high court’s decision has exposed the present crop of justices’ intellectual arrogance.

In plain language, this is a bully Supreme Court.

Bullies always meet their match; in this case, the enraged educators.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20101110-302550/A-bully-Supreme-Court